


Time It Tells

by indevan



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Family Interaction, F/M, M/M, Reunions, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 14:15:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13078599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Blearily, he takes in his surroundings.  It’s daytime and he’s in some kind of forest.  Trees shoot up around him.  Some are broken, maybe from however he landed.  Did he land here?  Did Frieza’s death ball not kill him but send him to a nearby planet?  Maybe.  Maybe there was something between there, too, but he’s in too much pain to remember





	Time It Tells

Pain.

Lancing, vibrating--pain.  He closes his eyes and hears someone moaning in agony--is it him?  He feels for his tail blindly but a burning in his shoulder stops him from reaching back.  He slumps forward and groans.  Maybe this isn’t too bad: to be dying rather than dead.  Not that he’ll be alive for long.  He’s been in enough scraps, been fucked up enough times to know that this is  _ bad. _  He might survive but infection will set in and he’s a goner anyway.  Maybe it’s for the best.

“Oh!”

A child’s voice.  With great effort, he opens his eyes and sees a small face pinched with worry.  He gets himself up, which is something his destroyed body very much does not want to do.

“Careful!”

The child rushes forward and catches him.  Blearily, he takes in his surroundings.  It’s daytime and he’s in some kind of forest.  Trees shoot up around him.  Some are broken, maybe from however he landed.  Did he land here?  Did Frieza’s death ball not kill him but send him to a nearby planet?  Maybe.  Maybe there was something between there, too, but he’s in too much pain to remember.  It hurts to move his neck too much so he can’t fully take in where he is.

“You’re hurt,” the child says.

“No...shit…” he grits out but the kid doesn’t seem deterred.

“Daddy taught me medical stuff.  I can help you!”

He takes the kid in and there’s something about him that gives him pause.  Maybe it’s the pain lancing through his body or that his brain feels dislodged and rattling in his skull, but he thinks he looks like Raditz.  He has that wild hair, anyway, the kind that Gine’s terrifying beast of a father had.  His eyes are blue.  Not his son, then.  Maybe not even a Saiyan.  They’re all dead, aren’t they?  Gine, his boy...what about the other one?  The one from his visions?  He somehow knows he got out but to where?  And where is  _ this? _  Planet Vegeta never had lush forests like this.

“Stay here,” the kid says and he’s beaming bright. “I’ll be right back.”

_ Can’t go anywhere, can I? _

He doesn’t say it but he nods.  The kid scampers off and he looks for a tail as he runs but finds none.  He isn’t a Saiyan then.  He slumps to the ground and waits for either the kid to get back or for his injuries to take him.

\--

The kid returns when the sun is slanting through the trees.  He has a box of medical supplies and he seems very determined to look him over.

“I wish I had beans,” he says. “But I don’t know where Mr. Korin’s tower is.”

Bardock almost snorts.  Of course a kid thinks he could fix him with beans.  He watches him take things from the kit.

“Pod,” he rasps. “Healing pod.”

“A what?” He cocks his head to the side. “We don’t have those here.”

Backwards ass shit planet.  Of course they don’t have them.  Bardock grits his teeth and lets the kid tend to him.  The little soaked swabs he dabs him with sting but something stops him from lashing out.  Maybe it’s the determined way he’s helping him.  His brow is furrowed and his tongue sticks out just a little and, somehow, it reminds him of Gine.  How she’d click her tongue at him when he’d stumble out of his pod after a mission and take him to the med bay.

“I’m gonna set your leg,” he says and this kid is clearly a cub, barely out of the natal pod.  What does  _ he _ know about setting broken bones?

Bardock’s about to say it, but then he’s making a splint.

“How old are you?”

“Seven,” he says.

Same as Raditz.  It can’t be him.  The eyes and.  Wouldn’t his own son recognize him?  He always did, when Bardock would come back and he’d run over, excited and ready to tell him about what he and his squad were doing.

“Where’d you learn this?”

“I told you.  My daddy taught me.  He’s a park ranger.”

He doesn’t know what that is or why he’d have medical knowledge.

“Sometimes people get hurt when they hike in the woods,” the kid continues, “so my daddy learned emergency stuff to help them.  He’s really smart.”

_ Good for him… _

“Are you hungry?” he asks once he’s done. “We always have a lot of food since papa eats a lot.  I eat a lot, too, but not as much as papa.”

His stomach is queasy from pain but he can probably eat.

“Park rangers need a lot of food, do they?”

The kid laughs.

“No, my  _ papa _ eats a lot.  My daddy doesn’t have to eat at all.”

“He doesn’t eat?”

He shakes his head.

“No.  He’s a...um…” His brow furrows. “I don’t remember what it’s called but he doesn’t gotta eat.  He’ll still sit with me and papa when we eat, though.”

_ Sounds fucking peachy… _

He wants to say it but, somehow, he doesn’t want to upset the kid.  Maybe because he’s helping him out of the apparent kindness of his heart.  Yeah, and maybe his injuries are getting to him and he needs some fucking sleep.

“I’ll get you food,” he says and, before Bardock can say a word, he’s scampering off again.

_ Weird kid with weirder eyes… _

He closes his own eyes.  Worse places to sleep than the ground, he thinks.  It’s warm here, too--nice.  He wonders if he’s going to be able to open them again.

\--

When he wakes up his first thought is,  _ So I didn’t die. _

Bardock sits up as best as he can--joints screaming, bruises aching, head pounding--and he can hear the kid coming back.  It’s dark now, but the stars are bright and Saiyans have always had a degree of night vision.  He sees him come through the tree line with an armload of food, humming to himself.  In the gloom, Bardock can see his eyes catch the light and glow.  He knows Saiyan eyes reflect the light at night.  He’s seen Toma’s before, after a raid, when he kissed him and tasted like chemicals and copper.  Gine’s, too, in bed next to him.  And Raditz’s staring at him inquisitively in the gloom of his room in their housing unit.  A place he went all too rarely.

This kid, whatever he is, has the same glow.  A Saiyan glow.  He doesn’t know what it means.

“Here you go!” he says. “I wasn’t sure what you liked so I brought a bunch of leftovers.”

He drops the cloth he used to carry the food in front of him and smiles at him eagerly.  Bardock looks at an array of meats and cheese on the cloth.  The sauce from the meat is already staining it.

“Those short ribs are really good,” he says. “Papa likes them a lot.  Auntie Chi-Chi makes them.”

Bardock reaches for food but movement at the treeline stops him.  A man stands at the edge of the small clearing that Bardock figures was caused by his landing.

“Bardock,” he says and his defenses go up.

He’s weak and some enemy that knows his name is here.  His pained, tired mind first goes to the kid, protecting him, and he doesn’t know why.

“Uh-oh,” the kid says quietly.

The man approaches and he can see he has the same eerie, supernaturally blue eyes as the kid.  In the darkness he can make out eye high cheekbones and a smooth, shiny line of black hair that falls nearly to his shoulders.

“Bardock, who is this?”

He wants to get his mouth to engage, to tell this stranger to fuck off.  He’s thin and slender, like he could be broken easily if Bardock had his strength, but--he doesn’t.  He’s injured and at his mercy.  The kid bites his lip.

“I found him, daddy.  He’s hurt.”

Something in the man’s face softens.  He kneels in front of the kid and pushes some of his hair back.

“I thought you were feeding an animal out here.  That’s why I followed you,” he says.

He shakes his head vigorously.

“Nuh-uh.  You told me not to do that ‘cause they get ac...um…acclim...” He screws up his face. “Used to being fed.”

The man smiles. “That’s my Bardy.”

_ Bardy? _

“He’s human, I think,” he says. “And he’s hurt.  I brought stuff here to help him but…”

The man looks over the kid and stares at Bardock with those sharp eyes.

“Let’s get him to the house,” he says after a moment. “Maybe he can say who he is after a senzu.”

“We got beans?”

There are those beans again.  This dolt believes in them, too?  The man approaches him.  Folds his arms over his chest.

“You can’t walk,” he says matter-of-factly. “Do you need me to carry you?”

“Doubt you could,” he says back.

The man smirks and steps forward.  Easily, with one hand, he hauls Bardock to his feet and lifts him up onto his shoulders.

“Come on, Bardock.”

His name again.  Who is he?  Why is he so strong?

“He looks like Uncle Goku, doesn’t he?” the kid asks.  He’s carrying the cloth full of food and keeping up with ease.

_ Who the fuck is Goku and what business does he have looking like me? _

Bardock’s head lolls back and he forcefully brings it back to rest on the man’s shoulder.  The walk is brief--or maybe he’s still that out of it--and he finds himself at a small house by a stream.  The main structure resembles a wooden cabin but there’s an addition of a dome house that looks like something that they would have on Planet Vegeta.

“Can you get the door?”

“Sure, daddy.”

The kid opens the door and the man follows.  He’s still clinging to his back, feeling useless, powerless.  It’s not a good feeling.  There’s another man in the house who stops and stares as they come in.

“I found who Bardock was bringing food to,” the man says simply.

The second man stares, his dark eyes wide as plates.

“Father,” he says in a quiet, almost choked voice.

_ Father…? _

Bardock lifts his head to get a good look at him.  It  _ can’t be, _ he thinks.  Raditz is a kid.  This guy is fully grown.  He has the hair, though, and his face…his face is all Gine.  He feels something deep in his chest.  That’s his boy.  His boy who’s bigger than him, taller too, and who gave him the right?

It hits him, then, that the little kid is his, and the first man calling him “Bardock” was because that’s the kid’s name.  He’s Raditz’s son and he’s named after him.  He’s in too much pain to properly unpack that.

“Father?” it’s the first man who speaks. “I thought your father was dead.”

“He is.  Was.  Is supposed to be.” Raditz blinks at him in disbelief. “I thought, at least.  But that’s him.”

The kid--Bardock?--looks at him with new eyes.

“Grandpa?” he asks.

He doesn’t know what to say to that.

\--

Turns out those beans are real and work miracles.  Bardock’s broken bones have knit themselves together and the foggy feeling in his head is gone.  He’s in a guest room in his son’s house.  The man who got him stops in his doorway and their eyes meet.  Out of the gloom he can see that the man’s beautiful but in an odd sort of way.  It’s hard to look directly at him.

“Are you truly his father?” he asks.

“As far as I know.”

“If it turns out you’re not--if you’re some imposter--I will end you painfully for any hurt you cause.”

Bardock watches his face, but he doesn’t detect a lie.  This skinny little twerp thinks he can actually hurt him.

“Who are you?” he asks.

His lips curve up slightly. “Raditz’s husband.  I’m Seventeen.”

Bardock knits his brow. “You’re what?”

He laughs.

“My name is Seventeen.”

“That’s an odd name.”

“It’s the only one I remember.”

He doesn’t know or care what that means.

“Look,” he says instead. “I thought I was being killed and I wake up forty odd years in the future  _ somehow. _  This is a lot to deal with.”

Seventeen’s eyes flash.

“I’m sure it is.” He looks at him for a moment with those disconcerting eyes.  Somehow they’re more frightening than the kid’s. “I’m just telling you.  Do not hurt him or our son.  You won’t like what happens after.”

He snorts derisively--he can’t help it.  Seventeen’s thin, arched brows rise.

“Don’t let appearances deceive you.” He turns to go but then seems to change his mind and glances over his shoulder. “There’s a bathroom down the hall if you want to shower.”

He’s gone and, involuntarily, Bardock shudders.  What a mate his son has.  He didn’t think he’d choose someone so...frightening.  Then again, his memories of his son are sparse.  He knows Raditz was a crybaby.  He’d wail if Gine left him at all alone and she was all too happy to oblige his whims and cuddle him until he quieted.

Shortly after he leaves--and, truthfully, Bardock  _ does _ consider a shower--he sees a little face peek around the door.  The kid.

“You’re papa’s dad?” he asks.

“You doubt me, too?”

He shakes his head.  When he steps fully into the room, Bardock can see him clearly without vision clouded by pain.  He really does look like Raditz did, except for those eyes.  Looking at them reminds him of Seventeen’s earlier threat and he nearly shudders.

“My name’s Bardock, too,” he says. “Papa says I’m named after you.  That you were a great warrior.”

He doesn’t know what to do with that information either.

“You fight, kid?”

He nods.

“There’s peace now so I don’t have to, but I train with my cousins and papa and daddy, too.” He bites his lip. “I can’t show you ‘cause I can’t fight in the house.”

“Cousins?”

“Yeah!  Marron and Goten and Gohan.  Gohan doesn’t fight anymore, but he’s a really good teacher.”

Bardock isn’t sure why the kid thinks those names mean anything to him.

“You gotta meet them,” he continues, excited. “‘cause you’re Gohan and Goten’s grandpa, too!”

A vision, then--not a premonition, but a memory.  His son, Kakarrot.  Seeing him defeat Frieza and finally end his reign of terror.

“Who’s their dad?”

“Uncle Goku--he looks like you.”

So that’s it.  Not Kakarrot, then?  But he’s his son who supposedly looks like him.  He remembers Gine laughing and saying how they have the same hair.

“Goku.”

“Yeah, but papa sometimes and Uncle Vegeta  _ all the time _ call him Kakarrot ‘cause that was his name before he came to Earth.”

The information hits him all at once and the kid probably doesn’t realize it.  Goku is Kakarrot, his son from the vision who he never met, and Vegeta...the King?  He survived?

“You should sleep.” He bites his lip again. “I’ve never had a grandpa before.  Can I hug you?”

Bardock doesn’t know what to do so he nods and the kid flies into his arms.  It feels weird and wrong, but.  Weirdly nostalgic.  Raditz jumping into his arms when he came home from a mission.  The brief moment when his arms tightened around him to hold him until the poke in the back of his brain told him that this was a weakness and he should let go.

Finally, the kid lets go and heads back towards the door.

“Good night, grandpa!”

He stares at him for a moment and says, “Good night, uh, Bardy.”

The kid’s face lights up as he leaves.

\--

He doesn’t know why he’s being paraded around like this.  He thought this was him meeting Kakarrot and his kids, not being dragged to some fucking compound in the city.

“It’s easier,” Raditz says. “Capsule Corps can hold all of us.  Besides, it’s a free meal.”

That’s enticing, at least.  Whatever pantry is in that little house in the woods is not equipped for three Saiyan appetites.

He sits in the back of the car with the other Bardock and every now and then he sees Seventeen watch him from the rearview mirror.  He probably doesn’t trust that he’s the real deal and part of him is touched that he cares that much for Raditz’s feelings.  Most of him is annoyed, though, at the constant scrutiny.

The house is some kind of futuristic fucking compound and Bardock feels like he’s on an outpost somewhere.  In the backyard, though, it’s all lush grass and bright, colorful flowers he can’t even begin to name.

“Wow, you do look like him.”

A woman is speaking to him.  He stares at her and she’s a pretty thing.  Weird hair, though--blue.  Even so, she’s someone he wouldn’t kick out of bed.  Before he met Gine, he was always hopping in and out of others’ barracks.

“Kakarrot again?” he drawls.

She nods. “You carry yourself differently, though.”

He doesn’t know if that’s a compliment or not.

“Did you have to throw a party?” Raditz asks.

She flicks her gaze to him.

“Obviously.  We haven’t all gotten together in a while.”

She says this so matter-of-factly.  Must be her house, then.  Someone comes up behind her and Bardock nearly does a double-take.  He takes in the man and at first thinks of the King, but that’s not quite it.  The pointed little nose and the aristocratic tilt of the chin, the eyes so dark it’s nearly impossible to differentiate the pupils and irises.  During the Tuffle War, he had had a brief affair with a fellow third-class warrior who went on to impress the future King Vegeta with her raw talent that was only outstripped by her bloodthirstiness.  Argulia.  The Saiyan Queen.

Raditz tells him he isn’t dead, but he’s seeing a lot of ghosts.

“You are alive,” he says and his voice is rough.

It clicks into place--not a ghost.  If Raditz is all grown up that means he is, too.

“Your highness.”

His squad had dined at the palace once or twice and he remembered the Prince.  Or, at least, he remembers his tantrums.

“This is Bulma,” Raditz tells him. “This’s her place.  And, uh, I think you know her husband.”

“I do.” To the woman, Bulma, he says, “my condolences.”

Maybe he’s being cruel.  Last time he saw the Prince, he was a bratty little five-year-old.  He’s probably grown out of it just as Raditz has most likely grown out of being a crybaby.

“My father respected you,” Vegeta tells him. “He said you were a great warrior despite being low-class.”

“Did he, now?”

He wonders if the King ever knew about him and the Queen.  Not that it mattered, really.  They were over long before she became his wife.

“He did.” He smirks. “I always thought you were a dick.”

“Hey!” Raditz says, indignant.

Bulma puts her hand on his arm. “Babe.  Why don’t we go check on the food?”

Before he can protest, she’s pushing him away towards the grill set up on the patio.

“I see he’s still a pain in the ass,” Bardock says.

“He is,” Raditz agrees. “But he’s helped save this planet enough times that we have to just kinda deal with it.”

That’s surprising to hear.  Saiyans don’t  _ save _ planets, they conquer them.  A lot has changed in forty years, he supposes.

More people begin to arrive, but not Kakarrot.  Everyone in turn comes to comment on his appearance, how he looks “just like Goku,” and it gets old fast.  Right now it’s a short guy with a wife who looks like a blonde version of Seventeen.  They have a daughter who is already running around with Bardy, playing some kind of pretend game.

“He’s always late,” the short guy says. “Don’t take it personally.  I’ve learned not to.”

His wife glances at Seventeen and Bardock has the feeling that an entire conversation has passed between them.  He’s no bright science officer like that annoying suck-up Paragus, but he can tell the two of them are twins.

He looks away to where Bardy is playing with who he now presumes is one of his cousins.  Another boy comes over, older than them, and he has the same face as the Prince.  The same face as Argulia.  He tears his eyes away.

There’s a pop in the air and he smells ozone faintly before air shifts and he sees a family of three standing on the grass.

“Wow, we beat Gohan here?”

The boy who speaks looks, well, a lot like he did when he was young.  An identical face, the same wild hair.  This can’t be Kakarrot, has to be his kid.  Next to him is a woman with her hair pulled back in a bun and next to her is…

“Hey, you look like me!”

Bardock isn’t sure when Kakarrot got right in his face but he’s there, grinning broadly.  It’s weird, looking at a stranger with your face, even if he is your son.  They’re the same height and have the same build.  It’s like he’s a clone rather than his child.

“That’s what they tell me,” he says back.

Raditz intervenes, stepping behind his brother and hooking his arms up under his and dragging him back.

“Personal space,” he tells him.

Kakarrot wriggles out of his grasp as if he’s still a kid and not a fully grown man and laughs.  He rubs one finger under his nose.

“Right, right.  My bad.” He turns to Bardock. “Yo!  I’m Goku.”

“Bardock.”

Kakarrot looks at him, acknowledges the name, and nods.  Behind his goofy demeanor, there’s something else.  Something familiar.

“This is my wife,” he says and gestures to the woman.

“Nice to meet you,” she says.

“And my youngest son, Goten.”

The kid grins. “Hey.”

Bardock doesn’t know what to do.  He doesn’t hug people and Saiyans don’t shake hands so he just lifts his hand in a semblance of a wave.  Goten cocks his head to the side.

“I’m gonna go see Trunks and Bardy.” He gives a brief bow. “Nice meeting you, grandpa.”

The kid has manners.  Bardock watches him hurry towards the other kids and it’s not lost on him that Goten even runs like him.  He knew to expect Kakarrot to look like him--his visions and everyone’s words--but the kid caught him off guard.

“Sorry, we’re late!” A new voice calls. “You know how it is with babies.”

Bardock turns to see a young couple coming towards the group.  Behind them, just to the left is a Namekian, which surprises him.  Last he heard, there was a drought or something that nearly destroyed the entire planet.

_ Forty years, remember? _

Bardock watches them approach.  The woman is holding a baby that squirms in her arms, struggling to break free.  The man, he thinks, looks familiar.

“Gohan!” Kakarrot calls, waving one arm. “Meet your grandpa.”

\--

The day is exhausting and he can’t believe how grateful he is to leave with Raditz to go back to the house in the woods.  His little namesake is already asleep, all tired out from playing with the other kids.  Bardock watches him and thinks of Raditz again, from when he was a child.  The grown up version of his son is in the front seat.

“They’re a lot,” Raditz says. “Sorry if it was overwhelming.”

Bardock shrugs.  He keeps picturing Goten in his head and that baby--his great-granddaughter, apparently.

“Yeah.” After a moment, he adds, “The one with the scars was hot.”

Raditz chokes in the front seat.  The man was handsome but he said it mostly to get a rise out of him and he doesn’t know why.

“His husband might like to hear that,” Seventeen replies. “He was the one with three eyes.”

“Oh, yeah, scowly.  He scowled more than the Prince.”

“He isn’t fond of Saiyans in general.”

“But you are.”

Seventeen seems caught unaware for a moment but then, surprisingly, his face softens and he glances at Raditz.

“I am.”

The rest of the ride is uneventful, but by the time they reach the house, the weirdness of it all has finally settled over Bardock.  The forty years, the fact that he’s here at all.  His sons, grown up.  His grandchildren.  His  _ great-grandchild. _  His mind hasn’t even begun to process it all.  Maybe it’s some defense mechanism.  A couple days ago, he was set to die at Frieza’s hands.  Now he’s at his son’s house and there’s no fighting, no missions, no raids.  There’s something cocooning him from the inherent weirdness that might hit him days or weeks or months down the line.  Hard to tell.  Gine’s gone, though.  If she had somehow survived, he knows he would have seen her.  She would have already been at the house.  The thought hadn’t occurred to him until now and it fills him with a strange sort of ache.

Raditz opens the door to get Bardy out but something inside makes him reach out to put a hand over his son’s.

“I got ‘im.”

Bardock lifts his grandson into his arms and carries him to the house.  He doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t want to question it.

He drops the sleeping child onto his bed, maybe a bit too roughly since he’s unused to it, and Bardy doesn’t stir.

“Take his shoes off.”

Seventeen is behind him in the doorway.

“Are you staying?” he asks.

“The night?”

“The foreseeable future.”

He gets to the point.  On some level, Bardock appreciates it.  He doesn’t like bullshit.

“Got nowhere else to go.”

It’s true.  Truthfully, Raditz is the only person here he actually knows.  Kakarrot may as well be a stranger, seen to him only in his premonitions, and the Prince wasn’t never someone he knew, only someone he was aware of.

“But do you want to stay?”

He thinks about what Seventeen said about what he would do if he hurt Raditz or their son and he realizes that this is what he meant.  Leaving.  Taking off on his own.  He should.  He has a lot to turn his over in his mind, a lot to process, but for some reason that doesn’t sound too ideal.  He looks down to where Bardy is sleeping on the bed, still in his shoes.  He thinks of Goten’s polite, sweet smile and the way the older one, Gohan, greeted him warmly as if he were already family.  The look on Raditz’s face--so much like Gine’s--when he recognized him.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> http://vertigoats.tumblr.com


End file.
